Elev-8 Flying backward not so easy
Well after getting comfortable flying the Elev-8 in a normal orientation, me facing it's direction of flight, I decided to try flying the other way. It didn't work out so well. The first time I backed into a tree and crashed. The second time I had to cut the throttle to avoid running into my apartment building. The first crash just broke a prop. The second broke three props and bent two motor shafts - ouch!
So, I did a couple of things wrong. One is that I flew in a relatively closed in area with trees and buildings and sidewalks around that didn't give a lot of buffer space. It would have been much better to walk down the street to a park, with a large open area and lots of thick grass. Second is that I didn't take off backward, I rotated (rudder / yaw) to bring it around, while up in the air 20 ft or so. I should have taken off from that orientation and kept the elevation very low until I could properly fly.
This thing is really pretty durable and I'm getting pretty good at taking it apart and reassembling. Gotta order some more parts now so I can do this the right way next time. :thumb:
So, I did a couple of things wrong. One is that I flew in a relatively closed in area with trees and buildings and sidewalks around that didn't give a lot of buffer space. It would have been much better to walk down the street to a park, with a large open area and lots of thick grass. Second is that I didn't take off backward, I rotated (rudder / yaw) to bring it around, while up in the air 20 ft or so. I should have taken off from that orientation and kept the elevation very low until I could properly fly.
This thing is really pretty durable and I'm getting pretty good at taking it apart and reassembling. Gotta order some more parts now so I can do this the right way next time. :thumb:
Comments
When you power up and sync communication between the transmitter and receiver assume the orientation is true. i.e. both facing the same direction.
If you compare the receiver orientation to the transmitter orientation and detect a disagreement over a certain threshold, then reverse how the receiver responds.
Instead of two compasses, get a flight simulator. Flying sideways can be challenging. How far sideways can you go before the controls reverse on you? Having the quadcopter automatically reverse controls is asking for (a lot) of trouble IMO.
Helicopter remotes used to have an "inverted" switch to supposedly make flying upside down easier. It was a bad idea too. You don't see inverted switches on remotes anymore. It's a much better idea to learn to fly with consistent control outputs.
Looking at RealFlight. It's a little confusing trying to figure out what package includes a quadcopter....
-Russ
Check post #4 of this thread.
BTW, I've listed links to many ELEV-8 threads in post #10 of my index (see signature).
I don't have a quadcopter on my simulator but training on a helicopter really helps too.
Instead of going nose in try one side. Basically use the list -
1. Tail in hover
2. Left side in hover
2. Right side in hover
Then...
3. Nose in hover
Don't let it get away from you, keep it in a very small area and land when you go outside that area. You should fly in a big area, but you shouldn't be using much space at all.
For orientation it helps if you turn your body just a little in the direction of the copter. You don't have to face the same way but if turn that general direction a little it will help a lot.
Happy flying!
Thanks! I'm using a HiTech Aurora 9 Tx. I really want the sim to just help me improve faster and with a little less pain on the quad. I like flying the it too much to ground it until I'm "fully trained". I gotta believe the sim behavior will be a little off from the real thing also.
Hover and fly with "Tail in" seems to be pretty easy now, even in a little wind. I can go fwd, back, strafe left & right all at a pretty good clip. Setting my Tx to use a throttle curve to flatten response at about 50% really helped take some sensitivity out of the hover-point and let me use more of my attention for other things.
I think left and right isn't too difficult also, since moving my body reorients my brain pretty quickly. I would try turning my body around for nose-in, but can't see the thing at that point.:frown:. My brain just doesn't flip around smoothly for the nose-in and once you make a wrong correction, problems escalate quickly.
You're not alone on this.
With the simulator I can fly a helicopter in any orientation inverted or not but when I fly the real thing I still usually play it safe and keep the tail pointed towards myself. I think I need to fly in a more open area. I usually just fly in my backyard. Here's a flight from my front yard.
The flight doesn't start until 0:21 (and don't wait for anything exciting to happen, it's a pretty boring flight).
I usually don't fly that high when I'm in our neighborhood. I try to keep it low enough that it will hit our house before flying off somewhere. I flew extra high that day (the wide angle lens make it look higher than it is) since I had a camera on it and our neighbors/friends came down the street to watch.
RealFlight 7 comes with one Quadcopter.
This software http://www.aerosimrc.com/j/ comes with a lot more http://www.aerosimrc.com/j/index.php/en/aerosim-rc/mimodels but the graphics are not as good.
@Duane I bookmarked your index page before even buying the kit. I refer to it often - thanks.
-Russ
So, flying the Elev-8 is many times easier when it comes to hovering. I didn't fly much yesterday so can't much on other aspects of flight. The rudder seems very sluggish on Elev-8 compared to the sim, however, the other axes are comparable.
Flying the real thing is pretty exciting. I'm looking forward to getting it to the park where I have some room to maneuver. I was in my back yard which is small, with trees and power lines. ;-)
Thanks for the suggestion of RealFlight. Even thought the physics may not be identical, the controls and techniques seem very transferable. I think it is a little like learning to countersteer in a car. Once you figure it out, you can apply the same principal to many different cars even though they all behave differently.
-Russ